Apps on the Mac that I can't live without

Since I've ordered an iMac for myself online and it's stated to arrive by Tuesday, let's do a rundown of the most important apps that I'll be installing on my new computer.

The most important apps

1) Chrome, and Firefox.
This one is a no-brainer. It's so basic, such an integral part of my life that I almost forgot that you have to install it yourself. Of course it's the first thing I'll download and install.

Sure, there's Safari... But with all the numerous extensions on the Chrome app store, and the ability to sync bookmarks and extensions across platforms... Chrome is my go to browser now, even replacing Firefox that I was enamoured with previously. I still use Firefox occasionally though, because I have multiple accounts of things like LJ, tumblr, etc, so instead of having to log in and out, I just log in to a different account on a different browser.

After those two, I'll probably pick up Opera as well, though I rarely use it.

2) Microsoft office suite.
Again, there's Apple's numbers, pages, and keynote... But microsoft office still rules my day. I use that at work. All my documents are in the office suite format... Yeah. It's a must. Only caveat is that I'll need to either get a usb cd/dvd drive fast, or I see if I can hook it up to the laptop and read the cd remotely because I have an old version of MSoffice in a CD, and the new iMacs don't have a CD-rom drive.

3) Alfred.
Alfred 3 just got released, rejoice! I've blogged about that app before, a long time ago... And yes, I'm still using that thing now. It's just so convenient! The latest version even brings text expansion ability into the table, so you might not even have to buy a separate text expander/typinator app anymore!

Ok. Let's backtrack a little to what Alfred is. It's well... A lot of things.

At it's most basic, it's an app launcher. A search box. It can find your files. It's a calculator. It's like a soaped up version of spotlight. But what makes it really shine, it when you pay for the powerpack. Or become a 'mega supporter'. I became a mega supporter after paying once for the powerpack features... And I must say I regret not becoming a mega supporter earlier. By becoming a mega supporter, you get all the updates free, for life. Even through major revisions of the app. As a powerpack supporter, you only get updates free through one major revision. And it only costs twice as much to be a mega supporter. This is the third major revision that Alfred has been through since I started using it, so basically I've gotten my mega supporter money back.

So what's in the powerpack you ask? Well. A lot of stuff.

Besides the snippet/text expansion mentioned earlier, you things like a music player, workflows, clipboard, hotkeys, shell integration... And a lot more.

My single most used feature would be the clipboard manager. I cannot live without clipboard managers. I had to spend my time searching the web for a decent clipboard manager to use on windows when I started using windows again at work.

Hotkeys. You can set up a ton of hotkeys on Alfred. And I have hotkeys for opening Chrome, Firefox, Word... For playing and pausing music... For skipping tracks... Yup. I love hotkeys.

The iTunes controller was used often too, when I my own lappy was still usable. These days I'm using my dad's lappy and my songs aren't here so... No more music listening on the computer for me.

The workflows. Ah. Workflows. You can make a note in Evernote from the Alfred search box, make a tweet, convert currency or units... Or you can launch a shell script, control your favourite app... The possibilities are endless, and the interface is presented in an easy to use way, so that even programming noobs like myself can use with ease. Or, better yet, you can simply download one of the many workflows that other Alfred users have made.

Of course, you can use change the theme and appearance just to way you like it. Pretty cool app, and definitely one of the first few I'll be installing.

4) Typinator
It's a text corrector and snippet expander... And has other cool functionalities (that I hardly use though) like being able to run shell scripts. I mostly use it for the auto correct feature. Snippet expander is really cool too, if I'm writing stuff a lot. Sure, Alfred just got the snippet expansion capabilities as well... But nope, Alfred can't correct regular typos for you like 'teh' to 'the', not unless you program it to I guess. Typinator has a humongous list of common misspellings also built in for you. Plus, I got the app a real long time ago. You can pick Text Expander over Typinator. Personally I think they are both about the same. I don't use the text expansion ability as much now since I do less work at home these days. But when I was writing my undergrad thesis it was extremely useful. I basically just keyed in the full name of the protein I was working with and never had to type that thing again. Ever. Setting up snippets for emails is very useful too, and I certainly spent a lot of time search for a windows equivalent to use at work (turns out there's PhraseExpress on windows, and gasp, it's free). So I type 're1' and my email ending pops up. Or 'dz1' for a email opening... Or 'quote1' for the whole shebang on my name, title, and office address when asking vendors where to send the quote to. Very neat, and saves me a lot of time typing the same thing, or even looking up things like my office address. Like. Who memorizes those stuff right? Well, at least, not me. Anything that I find myself typing more than once, I'd make a snippet for it. Sure, you can copy and paste, but then you have the save the text somewhere. And open that up to copy. So unless you're using the text right away, text expanders are the way to go.

5) Dropbox.
Hidden away in the finder... I almost forgot this gem. It maybe now shout out to you like Chrome does. but it's there in the background working all the same. I use dropbox to backup my iPhone photos, and to sync files between computers... Say my ebook collection. It's definitely an app that I need to install whenever I switch to a new computing device.

6) Evernote
It's the favourite writing app now. I write my fics there (well, my fics are short, so it works great), I save important snippets of information there. I save important emails there (thanks to outlook integration!). It's my to go place for information storage. Sure there's Apple notes that I also use on the iPhone... But for anything that I might be working on in the office? I'll put it on Evernote for sure. I've got my entire fanfic collection saved in there too. With the ability to make notebooks and sub notebooks (essentially folders and sub folders), you can organise you notes really well, and even share the notes with others. I personally don't see the need to pay for the service though, since I tend to only use it when I have Internet and thus the greatest premium feature - offline notebooks - doesn't appeal to me. (You need space on your device for that too, and my phone doesn't have enough space...)

7) Dayone
My favourite journalling app, that I've been using for over 3 years now. Also recently imported all my LJ entries in there. It's Mac and iOS only though, but still good enough for me. It also recently got IFTTT functionality, so I've been using IFTTT to put my fb status updates and instagram photos into my journal as well.

8) Better touch tool
The hotkey master for your mouse, trackpad, and keyboard. I rig up windows positioning with this app. I put this in number 7... It's not one of the things that I'll notice is missing right away... Till I need to reposition a window and hit Alt-V and hey! Why is nothing happening??? Yup. Then I get pissed and start hunting for better touch tool. Or a similar app on Windows. I like hotkeys, and hotkeys to help me place word documents side by side, just in a particular quadrant of the screen etc... It's essential for me. Esp in the office when I have a big screen... Or when my iMac arrives. There's so much real estate on the screen and you need to be able to use it effectively, and efficiently.

I'm not quite sure if you can do the same with Alfred workflows, but I got better touch tools set up before Alfred workflows were even called workflows, so I didn't bother trying. Like Alfred, you can save a preference file and transfer it between computers, and that's exactly what I did when switching to colonise my dad's lappy.

9) Bartender
Oh this one. Again, another app that you don't really notice till it's gone.

Well, for me that is.

Reason? Because I install on much stuff with menu bar items. And on the 13 inch macbook pro, there's not much real estate space. The icons are often covered by the menu bar items. And so I need something like bartender to help me manage the menu bar items... Hiding those that aren't needed to be seen, but that I need the app running in the background.

I used to have more of those apps in my menu bar, but not on my dad's lappy. I didn't install as many apps here.

10) Razer Synapse
Ok. This is a very recent addition. But since I am using the razer widow and mamba... And I spent my time configuring the lighting... Yup, you bet I'll install this. I've changed the layout of my keys too, so alt is now command and vice versa. So I'd alt-c to copy, which is the same key positioning as cmd-c on a mac keyboard layout. Unfortunately for me... This leads to some confusion when I'm at work... Since the keyboard layout is the same windows type as the widow... I end up pressing alt-c to copy a lot. Till I realize that it doesn't work and then I'd realize that 'Oh! I'm not on the mac!'. Didn't use to be so much of a problem because the mac and windows keyboard layouts are slightly different. Oh wells.

So that's the list of most important apps that I would install right away.

Then next comes the ones that are important when you need them. But aren't necessarily going to be needed right away. Like, tier 2 apps so to speak.

Important, but not that urgent

1) VLC player.
My go to player for video files. It plays a HUGE variety of video formats, has de-interlacing functionality, lets you skip videos back 3 seconds, and most importantly, allows you to assign hotkeys for many of it's functions. As someone who did video translations, ultra short backward skips are really important to me. Often times I'll just be stuck at a particular phrase, trying to figure out exactly what was said. And I don't need to waste time going back 30 seconds and listening to everything else all over again. I might end up forgetting what I was trying to listen out for even. So yup, VLC is the player for me. Not to mention that it pretty much handles everything that you throw at it. And you can re-sync the audio track or subtitles timing too. Love it.

Of course... Being the Arashi fan that I am, with a ton of different videos from various sources, I also have mxplayer and quicktime to supplement VLC, for the rare case that something might not work on VLC... Or so that I can check if the video glitch is due to my computer/vlc/the video.

2) MarsEdit.
My favourite blogging app on the mac... Unfortunately though... Support of it seems to have waned and this thing unfortunately doesn't play nice with LJ. I have to go back to LJ and add in the tags and things like LJ-cut myself. Can't blame them though, considering how dead LJ was, and still is.

Still, the ability to paste photos/screenshots into the editor, and have it automatically upload the photos for you later one is really a life saver when it comes to making show reviews. Since each of my show review is filled with like, hundreds of photos... The auto uploading feature is really, really a life saver. To be honest, I don't use it these days since I don't do TV show reviews... But once I get back to doing them? It's definitely MarsEdit for me. It plays nice with blogger and wordpress so that's great.

3) LINE
My favourite group messaging app. Well, I use whatsapp and fb messenger too, but those two are browser based when on the computer. Comparing the three messenging apps on the computer, I absolutely hate whatsapp. It's the weakest of them all. Because it's mobile based. They don't have their own servers that keep your data. Nope. Instead, the web browser app uses wifi to connect to your phone, and syncs messages from your phone to the browser. This means that the connection is lost pretty often. Like when you phone hasn't been used for a while, the connection tends to go off. On the other hand, both LINE and fb messenger lets you connect directly to their servers to download the messages. No phone required (save for the initial set up for LINE).

LINE of course, has the added advantage of having a desktop app (both for mac and windows). Ok, on the other hand you can't access LINE from the browser... But I prefer having a separate  chat app, rather than open a facebook chat just so that I can chat. I know, FB debut a messaging only website sometime back... But the page looks bad. I still keep a tab open in fb just to chat even now.

Hmm stickers. LINE has much cuter stickers than FB IMO, and the way of associating words that you type in chat with relevant stickers? That's something that FB could really really learn from. I hardly even use stickers on FB because it's too troublesome to search though my hoards of sticker sets to find something relevant to use. Sure, they recently included a search function... But really? I won't purposely look for a sticker. I just type. So that's one functionality FB could definitely use. As for Whatsapp? Geez. That lousy thing doesn't even have any stickers! Sheesh! Sure there's emojis, but what are emojis! These days, we want STICKERS!

4) Megasync
For downloading files from mega.co.nz. Well, this is only if you use mega. Which I do, a lot. When I'm getting my Arashi video files. So this is a must for me. Similar to Megasync would be apps like baidu pan, though they only have that for windows.

5) Keka, unarchiver, RAR extractor free, other file unzipping apps.
The unarchiver is supposed to be the best, and free unzipping app out there, but often times it refuses to unzip the file for me. Like, an ad asking you to select the file types it can handle pops up. Which you then dismiss... And nothing happens to the file. And then you rinse and repeat till the app finally, by some stroke of luck, decides to unzip the file for you. As a result, I got Keka. Yeah. I paid for that thing... Because it gives me an easy way to zip up my files and put a password for them without having to open up terminal. Because I'm a forgetful person when it comes to terminal commands and I hate having to google how to do it each time. And for some unknown reason, I can't find a decent free app on the mac that lets me zip files with password. Sheesh!

As for why I need that many unzipping apps... It's because I download Arashi files from a ton of sources and somehow some files that can't be unzipped with one program unzips fine in another... *shrugs*

6) YoruFukurou
Literally meaning 'night owl' in Japanese, YoruFukurou is a very elegant little twitter client for all your tweeting needs. It supports multi account, shows your lists, allows you to make searches... And most importantly is very light weight. By that, I mean that it takes up little real estate space. A lot of people use tweet deck, and I've tried it but dislike it. YoruFukurou is more minimalist in my opinion, and I recommend giving it a try.

6) Growl
Ah... The first of the many apps that stay hidden for the most part. Growl is a notification app that will enable apps to well, notify you of changes. Be it a new tweet mention or a new song playing... You can set the notification style, timing, which notifications to receive and so on.

7) NTFS for mac, Fuse for OS X
I can't remember exactly which app is needed anymore. I mean... I blogged about this a long time ago, regarding how to get you mac to read FAT (aka windows format) drives. I subsequently decided to shell out the buck and pay for it. It was on offer on one of the numerous mac app site that I subscribe to, and they bundled if with a program that lets windows computer read mac formatted drives too. If you are wondering why the hell your mac can't read your disk drive... Well, here's why. It's in the wrong format. You either have to reformat it, or get an app like NTFS and Fuse to let your mac read the drive. When I bought my seagate HD last time, they gave a driver that lets you read windows formatted seagate drives on the mac. Says it only works for seagate hard disks, but since the rest of my hard disks were mac formatted, I couldn't try. Still I found it really slow and problematic though... But my laptop was already really aged by then so I don't know who to blame. I subsequently transferred all my files out of the HD and reformatted it to mac format. I've not used it ever since either, since it's a non-portable drive that requires external power. Nope, no more HD drives that needs external power for me. Too troublesome!

Other Apps that I will install

Ok, here we are at the tier 3 apps. Apps that provide great functionality... But it's in some area that I hardly use.

1) Photoshop, and the whole Adobe creative suite.
Ok, I got this sometime ago on a CD... So I need that darn dvd drive again. I don't use it *that* often, but I do use photoshop every now and then. Would definitely need to pick up on illustrator as well... Though I have no idea when that's going to happen.

2) Calibre.
All, the ebook management app for my kindle. Well, that's not the only thing calibre can do of course. You can use it to convert PDFs and epubs to mobi format (or vice versa) too. If you have a lot of ebooks, calibre provides a nice and easy way to manage your files. You can sort the books by titles, author etc. And if you have a kindle? Calibre lets you mail the books directly to your kindle. No wires needed.

3) Mirovideo converter
I use this mainly to rip CMs into mp3s. For my mixlr radio broadcast. It's really lightweight app that does the job quick. No fanciful menus and stuff. Which you don't really need anyway. It can also help you to 'downsize' your video to a lower quality so that you can save space on your mobile. But with beautiful retina displays on the mobile these days... I'm not sure if anyone would do that anymore...

4) Mixlr
Well, for me to do random mixlr broadcasts of course. Nothing else there is to this.

5) Dropzone 3
A cute little menu bar app that lets you drag stuff to it. You can set the short cuts you want, an icon to upload the image your drag there to imgur for example. Or to open up whatever file in whatever program... Convenient, though hardly part of my work flow.

6) Popclip
A little pop up that appears when you highlight words, that lets you look the word up in a dictionary and so on. Good to have but not essential to my work flow.

7) Handbrake.
If you work with videos, then you'd have heard of this. It's a great app for ripping dvds, converting videos, and burning video subtitles. I hardly do any of that though so... :P Usually my teammate handles that part for me.

8) Aegisubs
A fantastic, free subtitling program. It lets you time the subs, set colors, fonts... You can even do karaoke with that thing. Again, I let J handle all that for me so I'm blissfully unaware of the inner workings on this program.

9) Artrage 4
We got this app when we got the wacom tablet. This is better than photoshop for drawing, especially if you're drawing anything more than simple black and white cartoons. In fact, this app lets you paint. Oil painting style. You can digitally mix then paint and stuff too. I don't do well in art in terms of drawing... But I guess I can always install this for fun...

10) Ink
I got this app before we got the wacom tablet. It lets you turn your mac trackpad into a drawing pad. Great for people who want to try doing some digital art but don't have a tablet. Sure the trackpad isn't very big... But trust me, this is way, way better than trying to draw with a mouse. Also, your computer screen is larger, and the app lets you zoom into a particular area of the screen to draw, so I do think you could get a better experience with Ink than with your phone.

Of course, nothing beats the iPad Pro and Apple pencil for digital drawing IMO. But then I've not had a chance to try the Apple pencil yet. Darn you stores! Why don't you let us try the pencil! :(

11) Teleport
This is great if you have more than 1 mac. It essentially lets you control multiple computers with a single mouse and keyboard. Pretty cool, but I don't see myself using multiple computers at the same time much since well... My lappy is basically dying.


Ok. I think that about covers most of the major apps that I'll be installing.... On the other hand... There are some widgets that I must have. Even though Apple has completely the dashboard widgets and there's even speculation that the dashboard will be gone before long... I really do like my dashboard and the widgets the way they are. Especially love the sticky notes feature. I clip random bits of information that I'll only need on my computer there. It's right there at your fingertips. Or with the moving of the mouse to the bottom left hand corner in my case. I like to have my dashboard as a translucent overlay. Not as a separate space. So that I can refer to my digital sticky notes and check the widgets I have...

Widgets

1) iStat Pro
They don't even make this anymore. You have to get the file off someone online... I know I had it uploaded somewhere... They now make it a menubar app and charge you for it. Well, I have no problem with paying a few bucks on a good app that I know I'll be using for ages... But alas, I have more than enough stuff crowding my menu bar as it is! I like it on my dashboard, thank you.

2) Screenshot plus
For al the random times when I want to take a screenshot. Sure, there are shortcut keys for that. But can you really remember all the shortcut keys? I think it's cmd+crtl+shift+4 to drag an area of the screen for a screenshot and copy the thing to your clipboard. I think. It's been a long time since I did reviews. But yeah... How about saving it to your desktop instead? What key is it? You can google. Or just get a widget to handle it for you.

3) Organized
A soaped up version of the calendar! You have notes, to-do list, and you can set multiple time zone clocks too.

4) TunesTEXT
For displaying the lyrics of the song that's currently playing in iTunes. Lyrics are pretty hidden in iTunes... TunesTEXT enables you to quickly refer to the lyrics, and get on with work.

5) Currency Converter
Ok, I admit I used this a lot more often in the past... These days google is really smart and you can just do a quick google search instead. Currency converter lets you compare multiple currencies at once though, an advantage if you are trying to convert to multiple currencies every time.

6) PEMDAS
Hands down the best widget calculator available. It's a scientific calculator, right on the widget, for all your scientific calculation needs.

7) LunarPhase
Ok, this is just for fun. But it's really interesting to see what phase the moon is right now. When is a full moon coming? Is it a crescent moon today? Incidentally, the app says it's a full moon today. Hmm, I should look out the window eh?

8) Other widgets...
There's loads of other purpose built widgets out there... Even though they're most likely very very old. If you keep playing scrabble you might want to check and install a unscrambler widget. Or maybe a widget to countdown to your big day. Or maybe something to play a plain old game of snake, or a digital lava lamp to waste your time away. Or you could simply check the weather with the stock weather widget.

It seems unlikely at this stage that Apple will revamp the dashboard... But I do hope they keep it. For one, I'd really, really miss it if it's gone.

Things that work and don't work - Update

Ok. So I've continued experimenting (read: trying) things out, and I thought I'll do a little update about the things I've tried.

1) Podcasts.
Oh no. I'm a little addicted now. Well, sometimes. Sometimes I get the urge to listen to podcasts and not do anything else. Which isn't very good. But at least I'm enjoying myself listening.

I'm using Overcast on my phone to listen to the podcasts... Because the stock Apple podcast app irritated me when I couldn't find the 'download' podcasts button. The internet at my workplace is so ridiculously slow it can't even stream a podcast. My favourites are still the TWI-series by Vincent Racaniello, no thanks to *somebody* for getting me addicted. But I like Vincent's voice, really nice and soothing. And of course, the content is interesting too. I've not listened to any of his parasitism episodes yet, but I'm liking the microbio, virology, and his latest in the series - evolution. Love that a lot, because it's the subject matter that I'm most familiar with. Heck, I never even knew that people did such cool stuff with evolution. When I heard about the kind of interdisciplinary stuff they were doing, combining molecular biology with field work with this and that I'm like. Shit, I want to do that. Well. That's the trouble now. The more fields I learn about, the more choices I'm aware of... The harder it is to narrow things down. But it's good I guess. Never too late to go on a journey of self discovery. Ha.

Some other science, but much easier listening podcast I've tried.

The Story Collider. Now that's a good one. People share about their own encounters with science, and for the most part the story is more about people's lives than it is science. The speakers I've heard so far are good though. Humorous and charismatic. And of course, the best part. Each podcast is only about 10-15 mins long. A short bite sized podcast for when you need some cheering up. Unlike the TWI-series which are usually 1 - 1.5 hours long and full of hard science (they usually discuss a paper or two, which is great because I've never had a journal paper discussion before), this one is purely for casual listening.

Stuff to Blow Your Minds by howstuffworks.com is also another great podcast. Also on the casual listening side, though the topics vary greatly and can range in terms of their seriousness and difficulty. I listened to 3 podcasts from them so far, one was on the organic food debate, another introducing Akademgorodok, a science town in Siberia, and the last podcast was on the use of acids in video games and Hollywood VS the real acids that we have in science.

Inquiring Minds is also an interesting podcast to listen to, presenting topics where science, society, and politics intersect.

Yeah. That's all the podcasts I've listened to so far... Not that many, since I'm mostly listening to the TWI series... And this brings me to my next point...

2) Ingress.
I've hit level 8, and I'm pretty much giving it  up. I still bother to log at least once a day when I'm out to hack a portal or two. Or three. But with podcasts to listen to, Elevate and Peak apps to practise, fics to write, and news to read... There are too many things to do on the train ride. And Ingress is not on the top of my list anymore. Level 8 reached, goal attained. I guess I can say goodbye again. (Plus, getting level 8 resonators and bursters is hard!)

3) Fics/writing.
Definitely writing a lot more now, and started writing fics again... Taking my inspiration from dreams and real life this time, since I'm still not watching any Arashi shows. Let's see if I can finish the other two dream series fics... So that I can release all four at once.

4) Studying.
Still coming along way too slowly. Esp for JLPT. No good. No good at all. And N1 is way beyond my abilities... No good, no good...

5) Crafts.
Doing some random crafts here and there, when I feel like it. Just last night, I made a washi tape box, and a blog post about it.

6) Going out...
Meh. Well. Last week J was in Sg, so I bought her around a little. But otherwise... Even for lunch I'm eating alone quite a lot. If I don't run into someone, esp my China colleagues, on my way out. I've been having lunch with them a lot. A little too much maybe. Too much Chinese. I message them in Chinese on WeChat. Talk to them in Mandarin. Have discussions in Mandarin. And somehow when the PhD student GJ messaged me a while back he suddenly used Chinese. And so I replied in Chinese too. Yes even when talking to the 'big boss' it's mostly in Chinese. Someone talk to me in English please? (Of course, I speak to my parents mostly in Mandarin too). I need some intelligent discussion in English. Talk to me. Someone! Ok. I do go for lunch with English speaking colleagues sometimes, but the discussion hardly leaves me satisfied... *Gets bricked*

Hmm I wonder who reads this stuff... Does anyone even read this? Though it's linked to my FB through IFTTT... I miss you unsup! (You should go read my LJ too...) *runs away and hide*

7) Catching up with Arashi stuff.
Nope, not happening yet. But I'm excited about my iMac that's stated to arrive on Tuesday! Hurrah! With 1TB of hard disk space... And at least a USB port that works... I can start downloading Arashi shows again. Well, the USB ports on my own lappy still works, but it takes super duper long to recognise anything. It's old. Sigh. Looking forward to being able to mass download stuff again. I don't want to do it on dad's lappy because I'm killing it already... :P

I guess that's all for this post?